Gautam Adani Listed As World’s Second Richest Man Briefly

Gautam Adani on Friday became the world’s second richest person after surpassing Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Louis Vuitton's Bernard Arnault to grab the spot with a net worth USD 154.7 billion, according to the Forbes’ real-time billionaires list before he was pushed back to the third position by Arnault.

Elon Musk remains the richest person with a net worth of USD 273.5 billion. Last month too, Adani had overtaken Arnault to grab the third spot, but was behind Musk and Bezos. This time he overtook Bezos for a brief period.

With him occupying the second spot, Arnault was pushed to the third with his family's net worth falling to USD 153.5 billion as it slumped by USD 4.9 billion. Arnault has reoccupied the position with his wealth totalling USD 152.8 billion though it fell further.

Adani’s wealth, meanwhile, slumped to USD 151.3 billion as his gains were slash to USD 1.1 billion from over USD 4 billion, and he settled at the third position. Bezos stands fourth with a wealth of  USD 149.7 billion that declined by USD 2.3 billion.

Mukesh Ambani, who heads the Reliance Industries Ltd, is at the eighth spot and is worth USD 92 billion. Adani, a first-generation entrepreneur, heads the Adani Group which comprises of seven publicly listed companies spanning infrastructure, mining, energy, and other sectors.

Over the past five years, Adani Enterprises has invested heavily in new growth sectors including airports, cement, copper refining, data centres, green hydrogen, petrochemical refining, roads and solar cell manufacturing.

It also plans to foray into the telecom space and has massive plans to grow its green hydrogen and airports businesses. Adani Group has also committed USD 70 billion for green energy infrastructure.